The First Gothic Cathedrals

From the World Wisdom online library: www.worldwisdom.com/public/library/defauIt.aspx The Eiret Gothic qatbedrale LMOST at the same time as Suger's re-building of Saint,Denis, the cathedral of Sens, the first cathedral in Gothic style, was built. Its main nave is still of squat proportions, less upward* striving than many a late-Romanesque minster, and originally, before the windows of the clerestory had been erected and the spaces between the vaulting filled in, it seemed wen more solid. Nevertheless, the Brib vaulting, and the way in which its sinews run together like a bundle of shafts and continue to the ground, is thoroughly Gothic. The logical coherence of the Gothic style of construction is already there, seemingly at one stroke. Whence came the idea, and also the technical knowledge, without which no one would have been able to build these audacious arches? Certain elements are already present in Romanesque architecture, but the decisive model derives from far away, namely from Islamic art, with which the Franks had for long (since the beginning of the Christian reconquest of Spain) been in touch, and which now from many sides, at the time of the crusades, exerted an influence on the European world of forms. It is important to remember that from the year 11ooJerusalem was the capital of a Frankish kingdom, and that the Order of Templars, which was founded in 1118 under the spiritual protection of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, raised on both sides of the Mediterranean its own army of building workers. In Moorish Spain, in CBrdoba and Toledo, there were cupolas supported on intersecting stone ribs. Closer to the Gothic style, however, are certain cupolas that are found in North Africa and, in their purest form, in Persia. They are char- acterized not only by being loosely set on a framework of ribs, but by spanning therein several surfaces or facets. In this way the ribs are scarcely visible on the inside of the cupola, but appear on the outside-usually a timberdad roof-as pectinate ridges, which support the vaulting by their curved span. This unusual building technique, which differs from that of Gothic, arose because the cupolas, with their ribs, were built over a basket-like framework made of twigs. This could not be done in stone; in the case of stone, the ribs had first to be constructed for themselves, and only when they were entirely firm could the shells be placed on or between them. The ribs were thus transmuted from purely spanning to bearing BrickvaulrintheGreat elements. Mosque at Isfahan. That one should find the model for Gothic vaulting in medieval Persia is not surprising: French culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries readily adopted forms from the Islamic world, with which it was in touch, and especially those forms that were of Persian origin. This elective affinity is to be seen not least in the knightly epics of both sides. The generally Islamic influence, however, is prevalent in almost all the knightly forms of the medieval West; minnesingers and trouba- dours were stimulated by Arabo-Persian models, and the Christian knightly Facing pagc orders themselves would have been inconceivable without their Islamic predeces- nave Of cathedral. Above the arcades, sors, which based themselves on the Koranic precept for the Holy War. which open onto the aisles, What Gothic architecture has in common with its Islamic prototype is its joy runs the triforium, and above in the geometrical play of lines, as well as its endeavour to overcome any impres- this is the clerestory, which Ori@nauywaslower~sothatthe sion of mass and weight. Both characteristics came increasingly to the fore as the vaulting, in the manner of a Gothic style developed, right up to the geometrical web of late-Gothic vaulting. dome,reacheddowntothe What is completely foreign to the Islamic prototype, however, is the way in which windows. 76 THE FIRST GOTHIC the Gothic style incorporates the roof, stretched between the ribs of the vault, into CATHEDRALS the rest of the building. The 'braided' cupola of Islamic buildings seems to hover; it is only imperceptibly supported by the walls. Gothic vaulting, on the other hand, delivers its arches and ribs directly onto the pilasters and, through them, right down to the ground. This way of doing things was already present in French Romanesque architecture, in the clear articulation of the pilasters, directly linked to the ribs and the wall arcades of the cross vaulting. The architectural logic was already there and, in the Gothic style, the pillars corresponded exactly to the ribs of the vault as they converged downwards into a single bundle. It was because of this downward continuation of the ribs into the pillars that the walls became anal- ogous to the shells between the ribs of the vaulting. Like these shells, the walls were little more than delicate partitions spanning the space between the pillars. The walls only assumed this character to the full when, thanks to the buttresses providing support from without, they finally became as it were translucent tapes- tries. Until that occurred, the interior of the cathedrals, throughout the whole of the early Gothic period, retained something of the weighty structure of Romanesque churches, even if the apparently elastic power of the arches, and the shafts rising to the vault in an unbroken stream and descending again to the ground as it were in a downpour, conferred on the whole building a hitherto unknown rhythm and tension, which, in place of the contemplative repose of Romanesque architecture, proclaimed a new upward flight of the will. Arriculation of the pillars in a West-Romanesque crossuault. A dome mounted on ribs from the Great Mosque at CBrdoba and the interior of a late-Gothic tower-top from Strasbourg cathedral. Romanesque architecture lets stone be stone; but it does enable its inert mass to be subordinated to a spiritual principle. Gothic architecture, on the other hand, introduces into stone an as it were upward-striving life and imperious will of its own. This voluntaristic element in the Gothic style is connected with the fact that the predominantly monastic culture, which had given its stamp to the art of the eleventh century, had now been replaced by a knightly culture, which increasingly influenced life styles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but which, having undergone excessive refinement at court, finally gave way to a purely city culture. The knight is a man of will; for him, the whole value of existence lies in free, dom of the will. But within the framework of medieval culture, this freedom had a completely different meaning than it had for the men of the Renaissance. Vis-his his fellow men, medieval man was free through his dignity, which no one might impugn -and one must not forget that in the Middle Ages every social station or 77 THE FIRST GOTHIC CATHEDRALS View into the nave of Laon cathedral. The wall is divided into four sections, namely, arcades, galleries, triforium, and clerestory. 'caste', every trade or profession, possessed its own dignity and honour; such men Groundplan ofLaoncathedra1. were free in their own eyes, in that they were able firmly to follow a resolution Eachsix-parcvaultoverthe once made; neither whim nor self-will, but fidelity to one's given word proves the nave cOrrespondstotwo bays in the aisle. The longitudinally inward freedom of man. quadripartite vaults of the It has rightly been said that no other culture accorded such a high value to transept are of later the pledged word. In fact, the social structure of the Middle Ages was completely construction. based on concern for the inward freedom of the person, and this was so despite the distinction made between high and low, a distinction which, according to modern ideas. seems to disregardu the freedom of the maiority.", Admittedly-and this is inevitable-outward freedom was unevenly distributed, whether because of differ- ence in physical and moral heredity (on which, precisely, the natural order of 78 THE FIRST GOTHIC social stations or 'castes' is founded), the presence of exceptional qualities, or CATHEDRALS merely property; but the hierarchy of rank remained just, as long as freedom and responsibility held the balance: the king or prince, who enjoyed the greatest freedom as regards authority over others, at the same time bore the greatest burden of responsibility, while the bondman or unfree peasant, despite his menial station, enjoyed the privilege of not having to worry about anything other than his own plot of land. He was tied to the soil, but he could not be driven from it; he was under the protection of his landlord, and as such, he could not be compelled to do military service.39 Even the king did not have the right, over the head of his vassal, to give orders to the vassal's men, for every relationship between lord and servant rested on reciprocity; the whole structure of the state consisted of a concatenation of alliances, which were maintained because they redounded to the advantage of both parties, but which fundamentally were guaranteed by loyalty alone, by the freelygiven promise of the individual. What is important here is not whether this principle was followed everywhere and always; what constitutes the character of a culture is the universally recognized prototype. How highly loyalty was esteemed is directly proved by the outrage which any breach of loyalty provoked, and by the severity with which it was punished. Characteristic was the rite of the oath of loyalty, by means of which the vassal pledged to his liege-lord the highest that he possessed, namely his free will, in return for the protection of his lord and authority over a certain domain: the vassal knelt down and placed his folded hands between the hands of his lord; the lord, to confirm the alliance, kissed the vassal on the mouth.

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